Thursday, June 22, 2017

From the moment of conception, a person is entitled to protection under the law

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"A Harvard Law journal says one of the most important parts of the U.S. Constitution, the Fourteenth Amendment, protects the rights of unborn babies.

Adopted in 1868, in the wake of the Civil War, that amendment sought to protect the rights of newly freed slaves.

It declares that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

According to an article in The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, law student Joshua Craddock argues that a person becomes a human being at the point of conception, and from that moment forward is entitled to protection under the law.

The journal is a conservative and libertarian review and one of more than a dozen publications edited by Harvard Law students.

Craddock writes, "The preborn are members of the human species from the moment of fertilization. Therefore, the Fourteenth Amendment protects the preborn. If one concedes the minor premise (that preborn humans are members of the human species), all that must be demonstrated is that the term 'person,' in its original public meaning at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment's adoption, applied to all members of the human species."

Based upon the premise that the lives of the unborn are constitutionally protected, Craddock further argues that states that allow abortion are breaking the law.

"Congress or the courts must intervene," he writes, explaining that abortion must not be condoned by the courts.

He argues that legal abortion deprives a particular category of people, in this case the unborn, the equal protection of the law. In other words, it's unlawful not to prosecute people who murder the unborn while at the same time prosecuting those who murder other types of people.

Craddock asserts that the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was to include the protection of the unborn. "A general consensus treated preborn human beings as 'persons,'" he says. "The preborn were included within the public meaning of the term 'person' at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted."

Furthermore, at that time, most states outlawed abortion in laws covering "offenses against the person" according to The Stream. Most states referred to an unborn child as a "child" in their laws.

Finally, Craddock points out that in 1859, the American Medical Association demanded the government protect the "independent and actual existence of the child before birth." Eight years later, the Medical Society of New York called abortion at any stage of the child's life "murder."

As Dr. & Mrs. J.C. Willke explain in their book "Why can't we love them both: questions and answers about abortion," "Biologic human life is defined by examining the scientific facts of human development. This is a field where there is no controversy, no disagreement. There is only one set of facts, only one embryology book is studied in medical school. The more scientific knowledge of fetal development that has been learned, the more science has confirmed that the beginning of any one human individual's life, biologically speaking, begins at the completion of the union of his father's sperm and his mother's ovum, a process called "conception," "fertilization," or "fecundation." This is so because this being, from fertilization, is alive, human, sexed, complete and growing."

In his Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II said that: "Some people try to justify abortion by claiming that the result of conception, at least up to a certain number of days, cannot yet be considered a personal human life. But in fact, "from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. This has always been clear, and ... modern genetic science offers clear confirmation. It has demonstrated that from the first instant there is established the programme of what this living being will be: a person, this individual person with his characteristic aspects already well determined. Right from fertilization the adventure of a human life begins, and each of its capacities requires time-a rather lengthy time-to find its place and to be in a position to act". Even if the presence of a spiritual soul cannot be ascertained by empirical data, the results themselves of scientific research on the human embryo provide "a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?" (No. 60).

Don't expect the liberal mainstream media, which has succumbed to a radical anti-life Culture of Death, to cover this story. They prefer the lie to the truth.

But examine these photos of murdered babies and turn away from the liberal media.

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About Me

Born in Bitburg, Germany,
Paul Melanson is a Catholic lay-philosopher and apologist whose work has appeared in many publications and websites including The Union Leader, The Wanderer, Seattle Catholic, Newsblaze, Helium, and Amazines. He has been interviewed by The National Catholic Register, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the television newsmagazine Chronicle.